Download Ph.D., Simon Fraser Uni

Candidate for Chair
Jian Pei
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., Simon Fraser University, 2002, Computing Science/Data Mining.
Professional Experience:
Canada Research Chair (Tier 1), Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada, 2004 – Present;
Technical VP (Sabbatical leave position), Huawei Technologies, Shenzhen, China, 2016 – Present;
Tenure-track and tenured faculty member, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada,
2004 – Present.
Professional Interest:
Data mining; Data science; Machine learning and AI; Databases; Computational statistics.
ACM Activities:
Member, SIGKDD Executive Committee, 2013 – Present;
Associate Editor, ACM Transactions on KDD (TKDD), SIGKDD, 2009 – Present;
Program Committee Co-Chair, KDD 2012, SIGKDD, 2012;
ACM Distinguished Speaker, 2011 – 2015.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
Member, The IEEE ICDM Steering Committee, 2015 – Present;
PC Co-Chair, VLDB 2018, 2016 – 2018;
Editor-in-Chief, The IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Eng (TKDE), IEEE, 2013 – 2016.
Awards Received:
The 2015 ACM SIGKDD Service Award;
The 2014 IEEE ICDM Research Contributions Award;
Fellow of ACM, 2015;
Fellow of IEEE, 2014.
STATEMENT
I am honored to run for the SIGKDD Chair position. As a long time award-winning member of the
extended KDD community, I will bring to SIGKDD my established experience in research, services,
and connections to academia and industry. As a member of the SIGKDD executive committee, a
Program Committee co-chair of KDD’12, various function chairs of the previous KDD conferences,
and an associate editor of TKDD, I am fully engaged in SIGKDD. My experience in both academia
and industry gained me deep understanding of the diverse cultural, educational and professional
contexts of this community.
If elected, I will have the following list of priorities.
SIGKDD is the premier professional community in data science. Both academia and industry
contribute significantly and integrally. SIGKDD must continue serving academia and industry in a
balanced and innovative manner.
Data science is the defining keyword and the identity of SIGKDD. SIGKDD must continue serving
the related communities collaboratively, such as machine learning, AI, statistics, databases,
cognitive science, and more.
SIGKDD must continue its dedication to promoting diversity, such as advancement of women in the
KDD professions and members in different regions and application domains. Most importantly,
SIGKDD must proactively foster the next generation.
Candidate for Chair
Balaji R. Krishnapuram
IBM Watson Health, King of Prussia, PA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., Duke University, 2004, Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Professional Experience:
Director and Distinguished Engineer, IBM Watson Health, King of Prussia, PA, 2015 – Present;
Principal Scientist, Siemens Healthcare, Malvern, PA, 2004 – 2015.
Professional Interest:
Data Mining; Machine Learning; Computer Vision; Healthcare Information Technology (Health IT);
Computer Aided Detection & Diagnosis (CAD) of early stage cancer.
ACM Activities:
General Chair, ACM SIGKDD 2016 conference;
Associate General Chair, ACM SIGKDD 2010 conference;
Sponsorships Chair, ACM SIGKDD conference - 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
Workshops Chair, SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, SIAM, 2013;
Vice Chair, Program Committee, International Conference on Data Mining, IEEE, 2011;
Workshop Organizer: NIPS ‘08, ‘10, ‘11, ‘13; KDD ‘08, ‘11; ICML ‘11, NIPS & ICML, 2008 – 2013.
Awards Received:
Best Paper Award, International Workshop on Digital Mammography, 2008;
ACM SIGKDD Best Data Mining Case Study of Deployed Industry Application, 2009.
STATEMENT
The Board of the ACM SIGKDD appoints key office bearers or committees to run the conference,
journals, and annual awards. However, with the >100x growth in the number of data scientists
world-wide, we need to expand ACM SIGKDD’s role. If elected, I propose to evolve ACM SIGKDD
into a professional body for data scientists, similar to the American Medical Association to help
you:
1. Find jobs and increase your salary.
2. Grow your skills as a data scientist, allowing you to achieve greater impact.
3. Form professional networks that will help you get professional mentorship, career
guidance, etc.
4. Eliminate misguided regulatory / legislative restrictions that reduce your ability to have a
larger impact at your job.
5. Promote the adoption of standards for all parts of the data analytics process.
6. Grow the community internationally.
Details on why we need to change and how we will achieve this are here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolving-acm-sigkdd-become-professional-body-data-balajikrishnapuram?trk=pulse_spock-articles
I am qualified to facilitate this transformation having successfully implemented similar changes as
General Chair of KDD ‘10 & KDD ‘16, the largest and most successful KDD in history:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/balajikrishnapuram
Candidate for Secretary-Treasurer
Shipeng Yu
LinkedIn, Mountain View, CA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., University of Munich, 2006, Computer Science.
Professional Experience:
Staff Scientist and Tech Lead, LinkedIn, Mountain View, CA, 2015 – Present;
Senior Key Export, Innovation Center, Siemens Healthcare, Malvern, PA, 2012 – 2014;
Senior Staff Scientist, Siemens Healthcare, Malvern, PA, 2009 – 2012.
Professional Interest:
Data Mining; Knowledge Discovery; Machine Learning; Algorithms; Software Engineering.
ACM Activities:
General Chair, KDD 2017, SIGKDD, 2016 – Present;
Sponsorship Chair, WSDM 2018, SIGIR, 2016 – Present;
Associate General Chair, KDD 2016, SIGKDD, 2015 – 2016.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
Industry and Government Chair, IEEE International Conference on Big Data, 2015;
Poster and Demo Chair, IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics, 2014.
Awards Received:
ACM SIGKDD DMCS Award for Best Industrial DM Application, 2009;
Best Paper Runner-Up Award for PKDD Conference, 2005.
STATEMENT
I am honored to be asked to run for the SIGKDD Secretary-Treasurer position. I have been
an active contributor and supporter of SIGKDD and the Data Science community in general
for over a decade. Currently I am serving as General Chair for KDD 2017, after I served as
Associate General Chair for KDD 2016 and helped bring KDD to a record-level attendance
(2700+) and sponsorship ($740K+). With a strong capability for visionary thinking and
detailed execution, I am well prepared to serve you, and SIGKDD, as Secretary-Treasurer.
ACM SIGKDD has been successfully serving the Data Mining community for over 20 years.
As Data Science quickly becomes a new profession and sees rapid growth in adoption,
SIGKDD must evolve to develop new strategies and mechanisms to bring value to each
member in his/her day-to-day life, facilitate policy making to remove regulatory hurdles and
collaboration barriers, and have broader outreach to prospect students and underserved
communities / regions. If elected as Secretary-Treasurer, I will take the budget surplus from
recent KDD conferences and work closely with the SIGKDD Board and every active
SIGKDD member to take innovative initiatives along these directions, ensuring that ACM
SIGKDD becomes the leading Data Science community.
Candidate for Secretary-Treasurer
Michael Zeller
Zementis, San Diego, CA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., University of Frankfurt, 1998, Physics.
Professional Experience:
SVP AI Strategy & Innovation, Software AG, San Diego, CA, 2016 – Present;
CEO, Zementis, San Diego, CA, 2004 – 2016;
CTO, OTW Software, San Diego, CA, 2000 – 2003.
Professional Interest:
Data Science; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Big Data; Cloud Computing.
ACM Activities:
Secretary-Treasurer, SIGKDD, 2013 – Present;
Co-chair for KDD Sponsorship, SIGKDD, 2013;
Co-chair KDD Industry/Government Track, SIGKDD, 2012;
Co-chair KDD Industry/Government Track, SIGKDD, 2011.
STATEMENT
Having served as SIGKDD Secretary/Treasurer since 2013 and previously as co-chair for the
KDD Industry & Government Track in 2011 and 2012, it is my honor to apply for the re-election
of SIGKDD Secretary-Treasurer.
We are seeing a surge in machine learning and artificial intelligence, driving a tremendous
interest in data mining research as well as real-world applications across industry and
government. As SIGKDD Secretary-Treasurer, I intend to contribute my fiscal experience in
running a software company to wisely manage the SIGKDD budget.
In addition to a special emphasis on interdisciplinary research, I believe that fostering a strong
partnership between research institutions and industry organizations is the key for the
continued success of our field. Not only will it help transition research results into business
applications, it will also inspire students through internship opportunities and guide universities
in the education of the critical talent for machine learning applications.
As Secretary-Treasurer, I plan to continue my involvement with the organization of the KDD
conference, intend to renew membership growth and increase the visibility of the ACM SIGKDD
organization, with a special focus on industry relationships and data science standards.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Johannes Gehrke
Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999, Computer Sciences.
Professional Experience:
Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft, Redmond, WA, 2013 – Present;
Tisch University Professor, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1999 – 2015;
Visiting Professor, Max-Planck Institute for Software Systems, Saarbruecken, Germany, 2010 – 2011.
Professional Interest:
Data Mining; Data Science; Database Systems; Distributed Systems; Machine Learning.
ACM Activities:
Member of the Board of Directors, SIGKDD, 2009 – 2017;
Co-Chair, ACM SIGMOD Jim Gray Dissertation Award, SIGMOD, 2008 – 2012;
Member of the SIGKDD Best Paper Award Committee, SIGKDD, 2011;
Program Co-Chair, ACM SIGKDD Conference, SIGKDD, 2003.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
Program Co-Chair, IEEE ICDE Conference (ICDE 2015), IEEE, 2015;
Program Co-Chair, ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing (SOCC), ACM, 2014;
Program Chair, VLDB Conference, VLDB Endowment, 2007.
Awards Received:
ACM Fellow, 2014;
ACM SIGMOD Best Paper Award, 2011;
IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award, 2011;
Humboldt Research Award, 2010.
STATEMENT
It is my honor to have the chance to continue to serve on the SIGKDD Board of Directors.
Having recently moved from academia to industry, I have now seen the challenges on both sides.
In academia, a major problem was the availability of data and associated real-world problems in the
open domain. Now in industry, I see the issues that our data scientists are facing every day across
scale, tooling, algorithms, data complexity, and data governance and access policies. What makes
SIGKDD unique is that we connect academia and industry through our community, the SIGKDD
Conference and the KDD Cup, serving as an exchange of data, problems, and people across
research and practice. If re-elected, I will (1) continue to strengthen our role as bridging research and
practice with excellence in both; (2) help strengthen our connections to the database community
where I am also an active member; (3) work on improving our international footprint and impact, and
(4) ensure that we use SIGKDD’s solid financial state to benefit our community.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Mohammed J. Zaki
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., University of Rochester, 1998, Computer Science.
Professional Experience:
Full Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2008 – Present;
Principal Scientist, Qatar Computing Research Institute, Doha, Qatar, 2013 – 2015;
Associate Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2003 – 2008.
Professional Interest:
Data Mining; Bioinformatics; Parallel and Distributed Data Mining; Machine Learning;
Graph Analytics.
ACM Activities:
SIGKDD Executive Committee, SIGKDD, 2013 – Present;
Program Chair, SIGKDD Conference, 2009;
Program Chair, ACM CIKM Conference, SIGIR, 2012;
Senior Program Committee, SIGKDD Conference, 2017.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
Program Chair, IEEE Big Data Conference, 2015;
Program Chair, IEEE Data Mining Conference (ICDM), 2012;
Program Chair, SIAM Data Mining Conference, 2008.
Awards Received:
IEEE Fellow, 2017;
ACM Distinguished Scientist, 2010;
ACM Certificate of Recognition of Service, 2009;
ACM Certificate of Recognition of Service, 2003.
STATEMENT
It is an honor and a privilege for me to serve in the SIGKDD executive committee. I have
been associated with the SIGKDD community in various roles for almost two decades.
The crucial role of data mining in the era of big data and data science continues unabated,
and the SIGKDD community is in a unique position to influence the future course of how
data mining and learning is applied in all spheres. I look forward to contributing to
SIGKDD's continued success in these exciting times.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Deepak Agarwal
Linkedin, Sunnyvale, CA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 2001, Statistics.
Professional Experience:
Vice President of Artificial Intelligence, LinkedIn, Sunnyvale, CA, 2012 – Present;
Principal Research Scientist, Yahoo Research, Sunnyvale, CA, 2006 – 2012;
Senior Research Scientist, AT&T Labs, Florham Park, NJ, 2001 – 2005.
Professional Interest:
High dimensional graphical models; Experimental design; Statistical methods; Machine learning;
Data mining.
ACM Activities:
Member, Executive Committee of SIGKDD, 2013 – Present;
Program Chair, SIGKDD, 2012.
STATEMENT
Availability of massive data coupled with cheap and ubiquitous computing power helps us make
data-driven decisions for many applications. It has opened the door to advance the science and
engineering of data mining to solve some of the most difficult problems of our times.
Although we have seen remarkable progress in areas like ML, IR and other sub-disciplines, data
mining is more than these. It is about the entire end-to-end process of collecting and cleaning
data, formulating scientific solutions to messy practical problems, creating processes/systems
that can mine data in a reliable and cost efficient way. Despite significant progress, we still have
a long way to advance the scientific rigor and accessibility of the KDD process. I believe this is
where SIGKDD as an organization has and should continue to differentiate itself from other
academic organizations in terms of providing value.
I have done both foundational research and have practical experience running large scale data
systems at Yahoo! and LinkedIn. Bridging the gap between theory and practice is what I am most
passionate about. I humbly seek your support to serve SIGKDD again. Together, we would
transform the world by democratizing data mining for all.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Ying Li
DataSpark Pte. Ltd., Singapore
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 1993, Computer Science.
Professional Experience:
Chief Technology Officer, DataSpark Pte. Ltd., Singapore, 2016 – Present;
Chief Data Scientist, Jobaline.com, Kirkland, WA, 2014 – 2016;
General Manager, Partner Engineering Manager, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA,
2006 – 2012.
Professional Interest:
Spatial Temporal Data Mining and Mobility Intelligence; Data Science and Machine Learning;
Big Data Systems; Voice Data Mining and Emotion Response Modeling; Web Mining and Ad
Targeting.
ACM Activities:
Founding member and advisor, ACM SIGKDD Seattle Chapter, 2014 – Present;
Member of Executive Committee, ACM SIGKDD, 2013 – Present;
Co-Chair of Industry and Government Track, ACM International Conference on Knowledge
Discovery and Data Mining, 2010;
General Chair, ACM International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2008.
Awards Received:
ACM SIGKDD Service Award, 2012.
STATEMENT
I have been serving the SIGKDD community for more than 10 years, from running the KDD
conferences in chair roles, to serving on the Executive Committee. While it is gratifying to see
the growth of our community, I continue to see areas where I can make additional or new impact.
Therefore, I decided to seek to be re-elected.
I believe SIGKDD has an obligation to address the unmet needs for data scientists and data
science skills in our society. I further believe the needs can be addressed through continued
growth of experienced data scientists and attainment of data science skills among the general
technical community. To that end, I have been actively involved in establishing the Seattle
Chapter of SIGKDD in 2014 and in running programs like the distinguished speaker series for
experience data scientists and hands-on tutorials for the general technical community.
My passion for serving the data science community brought me further to Asia. Currently I am
actively working with a group of the finest data scientists in Singapore to establish the SIGKDD
Singapore chapter. I aspire to make a measurable impact to the data science community locally
through the chapters and globally through the SIGKDD Executive Committee.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Rajesh Girish Parekh
Facebook, Menlo Park, CA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., Iowa State University, 1998, Computer Science (Machine Learning).
Professional Experience:
Director, Analytics, Facebook, Menlo Park, CA, 2015 – Present;
Vice President, Data Science, Groupon, Palo Alto, CA, 2011 – 2015;
Senior Director, Research, Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, CA, 2004 – 2011.
Professional Interest:
Applied Machine Learning; Data Analytics; Computational Advertising; Neural Networks;
Business Intelligence.
ACM Activities:
Co-chair, Applied Data Science Invited Talks, SIGKDD Conference, 2011 – 2016;
Treasurer, SIGKDD Conference, 2004.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
Member, IEEE, 1992 – Present;
Member, SIGKDD, 1998 – Present.
Awards Received:
Distinguished Alumni Award, Iowa State University, 2016;
Inventor of the Year, Groupon, 2016;
You Rock Award, Yahoo!, 2010;
Data Wizard Award, Yahoo!, 2005.
STATEMENT
The events organized by SIGKDD, particularly, the annual KDD conference, have shaped
my professional career. Since completing my Ph.D., I have applied Data Science to solve
challenging business problems at top global companies. I have filed 50+ patents and
authored 30+ international publications.
My personal experience of the challenges of publishing cutting edge industry applications
led to the inaugural Applied Data Science invited talks track at KDD 2011 that I co-chaired
with Ying Li with guidance from Usama Fayyad. This is now a permanent fixture at KDD
and is replicated at conferences like WWW and CIKM. I have served as co-chair of this
track for 5 years between 2011 and 2016.
If elected, I will work to cement SIGKDD’s role in making Data Science a core component
decision making process. Specifically,
•
Grow the influence of Data Science in top echelons of corporate leadership and
government / policy administration.
•
Facilitate standardization of tools and build packaged solutions for business
problems.
•
Foster cooperation between academia and industry to drive rapid technology
transfer.
•
Develop educational programs for students and professionals to narrow the demand
for trained Data Scientists.
It will be a privilege to serve as EC member of SIGKDD.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Geoff Webb
Monash University, Australia
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., La Trobe University, 1987, Computer Science.
Professional Experience:
Full Professor, Monash University, Australia, 2002 – Present;
Technical Advisor, BigML, Inc., USA, 2015 – Present;
Full Professor, Deakin University, Australia, 1998 – 2002.
Professional Interest:
Data Science; Machine Learning; Pattern Discovery.
ACM Activities:
Program Committee Chair, ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data
Mining, 2015;
Panels Chair, ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2014;
Panels Chair, ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2013;
Editor, ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery in Data, 2007 – 2012.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
General Chair, IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), 2012;
PC Chair, IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), 2010;
Editor-in-Chief, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 2005 – 2015.
Awards Received:
IEEE Fellow, 2015;
Australian Computer Society ICT Researcher of the Year Award, 2016;
Australasian AI Distinguished Research Contributions Award, 2016;
IEEE ICDM Service Award, 2013.
STATEMENT
Our conference is the leading KDD conference and I have been an active member of the
community since my first KDD paper at the Boston conference in 2000; attending most KDDs
since, and serving on the Awards Committee, as a Program Committee (PC) member, as Senior
PC member, as Panels Chair and PC Chair.
The most important role of SIGKDD is overseeing the annual conference. The SIG has
accumulated a massive reserve. I will work to invest some of this reserve back into the
conference.
The first investment that should be made is in support for the numerous volunteer chairs. As the
conference has grown these voluntary positions have become ever increasingly onerous. In
2015, my PC co-Chair Thorsten Joachims employed an assistant to help with PC actions such
as checking that submissions were compliant. It is unreasonable that, in addition to volunteering
time, volunteers should have to pay for such assistance. All the major chair roles would benefit
from assistance with the many low-level activities with which these important roles are burdened.
The second investment is to increase support for students; especially for international students
for whom the cost of attending the conference can be prohibitive.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Jure Leskovec
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon, 2008, Machine Learning.
Professional Experience:
Chief Scientist, Pinterest, San Francisco, CA, 2015 – Present;
Associate Professor, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2016 – Present;
Assistant Professor, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2009 – 2016.
Professional Interest:
Data science; Data mining; Social network analysis; Graph mining; Machine learning.
ACM Activities:
Program Chair, SIGKDD, 2014;
Student Awards Chair, SIGKDD, 2016.
Membership and Offices in Related Organizations:
Vice-President, American Slovenian Education Foundation, 2014 – Present.
Awards Received:
Lagrange Prize, 2016;
Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, 2012;
Okawa Foundation Research Award, 2012;
ACM SIGKDD Dissertation Award, 2009.
STATEMENT
I’m honored to have the opportunity to stand for election to the SIGKDD executive committee.
With the recent surge of interest in data mining, data science, as well as machine learning,
SIGKDD has an important role to play in shaping and supporting developments. Thus,
it will be as important as ever for the academia as well as industry to play a strong role in
guiding the direction of the SIGKDD. I hope to apply my wide range of experiences to this
problem, and I will always be eager to get input from my colleagues about how we can help
them meet their goals.
Candidate for Board of Directors
Claudia Perlich
Dstillery, New York, NY, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Academic Background:
Ph.D., NYU, Stern, 2004, Information Systems.
Professional Experience:
Chief Scientist, Dstillery, New York, NY, 2010 – Present;
Adjunct Professor, Stern, New York University, New York, NY, 2011 – Present;
Research Staff Member, IBM Research, New York, NY, 2004 – 2010.
Professional Interest:
Predictive Modeling; Data Mining; Machine Learning; Statistics; Scientific Computing.
ACM Activities:
Sponsorship Chair, SIGKDD 2016, 2015 – 2016;
General Chair, SIGKDD 2014, 2013 – 2014;
KDD CUP Chair at SIGKDD 2012, 2011 – 2012;
KDD CUP Chair at SIGKDD 2011, SIGKDD, 2010 – 2011.
Awards Received:
Best Industry Paper at KDD 2012;
Best Research Paper at KDD 2011;
Winner KDD CUP 2009;
Winner KDD CUP 2008.
STATEMENT
I am honored to run for the SIGKDD Chair position. I have been a member and active ACM
volunteer for more than a decade, recently as the General Chair of KDD 2014. I have been the
recipient of numerous recognitions (best paper awards and winning KDD CUP competitions)
and have served the community in various roles. My professional career has straddled both
the scientific and applied aspects of data mining. I give more than 70 public talks annually on
the topics of data mining, predictive modeling and data science, and am involved in a number of
organizations including “Data & Society”, “AI for Good Foundation”, “Datakind”, and various
educational advisory boards. This experience gives me a unique perspective on the challenges
and opportunities of the ACM SIGKDD in the day and age where Data Science has become a
vastly successful field.
I feel that SIGKDD could and should be at the center of Data Science. If elected as Chair, I will
work with both group members and external experts to ensure that the ACM SIGKDD will
become recognized as the key professional body with more than 20 years of contributions in
this exciting field.